It is common practice in building vehicles such as cars and trucks to fabricate components and sub-assemblies of major components in locations remote from the site of final assembly of the component or sub-assembly into the vehicle. The remotely fabricated components and sub-assemblies are stored until needed, and shipped to the site of final assembly into the vehicle, as they are needed.
One such sub-assembly, known as a “corner” apparatus of a vehicle, typically includes a wheel spindle, and a disk brake rotor attached to the wheel spindle. The corner may also include a number of other components, such as an axle and wheel bearing, a speed sensing apparatus, a disk brake caliper apparatus, and a steering knuckle.
It is important that the brake rotor be secured tightly to the wheel spindle, in a predetermined position relative to the wheel spindle, until the corner is assembled into the vehicle, and a wheel is bolted to the wheel spindle, in order to preclude debris from getting between the faying (i.e. mating) surfaces of the rotor and the wheel spindle. Any debris between the faying surfaces will cause lateral run-out of the brake rotor with respect to the wheel spindle that contributes significantly to generating undesirable pulsations of the brakes and vehicle forward motion, during braking.
Prior wheel spindles have included a threaded hole for receiving a rotor retaining machine screw that passes through the brake rotor for securing the brake rotor to the wheel spindle in the corner apparatus. Providing the threaded hole requires that sequential drilling and tapping steps be performed during fabrication of the wheel spindle. It is also necessary that extra care and time be taken to ensure that the machine screw properly engages the threads in the threaded hole, when attaching the rotor to the spindle, so that the screw is not cross threaded or the threads damaged. It would be advantageous to eliminate the extra time and cost required for providing the threaded hole and carefully inserting the machine screw into the hole.
In prior wheel spindles the threaded hole is typically located with respect to wheel bolt holes in the spindle, for wheel bolts used to secure a wheel to the corner. The wheel bolt holes are in turn typically located in a pattern with respect to a plurality of alignment holes in the spindle. It would be advantageous to eliminate the need for the alignment holes in the spindle.